Jeanne Sauvage is a PhD candidate in the Department of French at Yale. Her research interests include translation studies, genetic criticism, transatlantic book history, and the novel in French and US literature. A graduate of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, she received a B.A. in English from Sorbonne Université and holds an M.A. in Literary Theory jointly delivered by ENS, EHESS, and the Sorbonne. Her two Master’s theses examine the liberal politics of the campus novel (David Lodge, Alison Lurie, Michel Houellebecq), and the poetics of potentiality in Paul Auster’s novel 4 3 2 1.
At Yale, Jeanne’s research relies on book history and textual scholarship to explore theories, histories, and sociologies of translation in France. Her dissertation investigates translators’ archives (drafts, working documents, correspondence, contracts…) to examine how translators shaped a “French” US literature, defining its language and its canon. Working at the nexus of literature and history, she’s also interested in translators’ associations and in the socioeconomic realities of translation labor.
Jeanne has also worked for the Éditions Gallimard in Paris and for the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York.